On October 1, 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers updated the composition of the Supervisory Board of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" by order No. 1090-r. The government approved seven members of the board: four independent (Anatoliy Amelin, Elzhbeta Eva Benkovska, Maksym Moklyak, Gepard Hafer) and three state representatives (Serhiy Leshchenko, David Lomdzhariya, Oleksandr Kamyshin). The document was signed by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko.
Anatoly Amelin, co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future think tank, has actually had his mandate extended for a second term: he was already a member of the UZ Supervisory Board in the previous composition, along with Gepard Hafer, Serhiy Leshchenko, and David Lomzharia. Before that, Amelin worked at the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) and headed the investment company Altana Capital, which was linked in the market to Rinat Akhmetov's business orbit.
After the government's decision, a public scandal erupted around Amelin. Journalists, citing open legal registers, claim that in the fourth year of a full-scale war, he is still listed as a co-founder of a business in occupied Donetsk - in particular, Stolichny Styl LLC. Among the co-founders of this LLC is PrJSC "CAPITEL BUILDING CORPORATION", the ultimate beneficiary of which is Oleksandr Yanukovych, the son of fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych, through the structure of PrJSC "MAKO HOLDING". That is, formally, Amelin's joint business can be traced to people from the closest circle of the Yanukovych family.
This raises a logical question within Ukrzaliznytsia itself: how did a person with such connections remain on the supervisory board of a strategic state-owned company for the second time in a row during the war? According to the anonymous Telegram channel of railway workers “Fire PONAB” (the channel is associated with the former chairman of the board of UZ Oleksandr Kamyshin), Amelin is “a creature of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.” The channel describes him as a person who “exchanged Donetsk organized crime groups for the “Kyiv Institute of the Future.” At the same time, there is no public confirmation from Svyrydenko herself about her personal role in promoting Amelin: journalists were unable to find any open joint appearances, statements, or comments about him.
Another line of this story is the role of Oleksandr Kamyshin. Kamyshin, who once headed the board of Ukrzaliznytsia, abruptly left the company in 2023. He was later appointed Minister for Strategic Industries, and the then Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko publicly presented him as a person who should "restart" the department to meet the needs of the struggling economy. A year later, Kamyshin was dismissed from the post of minister on the recommendation of a relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada. At that time, the media speculated that one of the reasons for his quick departure from UZ could have been questions from the NABU, and that his dismissal was supposedly protecting the company from a reputational blow. (This in itself does not mean that there was suspicion, but only shows the level of toxicity of the topic of corruption in UZ.)
In fact, we have the following picture:
– The Cabinet of Ministers has formally completed the competitive selection and appointed a renewed Supervisory Board of UZ — with international members, with experience in logistics and public administration, and with Ukrainian public figures like Leshchenko. The government was signed by the current Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
– At the same time, Anatoliy Amelin remains in the Council, around whom three toxic stories are now being glued together at once: his past business ties with Akhmetov's orbit, his current presence in Donetsk business alongside Oleksandr Yanukovych's structures, and political hints that he is being lobbied at the highest level.
– Within Ukrzaliznytsia itself, some of the staff, according to reports from specialized channels, do not understand what this looks like from the point of view of the security and reputation of the company, which is critical for the country's defense.
Against this background, it is worth remembering: The Supervisory Board of UZ is not just a formality. It controls the company's strategic policy, approves key personnel appointments, monitors procurement and investment decisions. By law, its majority must be made up of independent members, and the term of office of a board member is three years, with the possibility of re-election an unlimited number of times. That is, retaining a seat on the Board for a second time is not an automatic decision, it is either a competitive selection or a very serious "credit of trust."
And now the question is: is this credit of trust justified, or is it a political "quota" that doesn't look very nice in a war situation?
